Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to reduce the backlog of operations in the NHS.

The NHS has published a delivery plan setting out a clear vision for how the NHS will recover and expand elective services over the next three years.

To support this recovery, the government plans to spend more than £8 billion from 2022-23 to 2024-25, in addition to the £2 billion Elective Recovery Fund and £700 million Targeted Investment Fund already made available to systems last financial year (2021/2022) to help drive up and protect elective activity. Taken together, this funding could deliver the equivalent of around nine million more checks and procedures and will mean the NHS in England can aim to deliver around 30% more elective activity by 2024-25 than before the pandemic. A significant part of this funding will be invested in staff – both in terms of capacity and skills. The Department has also committed to a £5.9 billion investment in capital – for new beds, equipment and technology.

Having met our target to eliminate long waits of two years or more for elective procedures in July, our next ambition is to eliminate waits of eighteen months or more by next April. Steps being taken include increasing capacity, seeking alternate capacity in other trusts or the independent sector, and engaging with patients to understand their choices.